BC chef captures Knorr junior title

By Mike Deibert

MONTREAL-It may or may not say something about the future of the culinary arts in Canada, but the three winners in the Knorr/CCFCC Junior Culinary Challenge this year were all female.

The three women took the top slots in a competition of young chefs from each of Canada's provinces, sponsored by UBF Foodsolutions and its Knorr brand.

Brooke Winters from British Columbia captured gold, which earned her $2,000 plus a trip to Erfurt, Germany in October with Culinary Youth Team Canada at what is popularly known as the Culinary Olympics.

The winner of the silver medal and $1,500 was Ashley Stenabaugh from Ontario, while the bronze medal and $1,000 went to Melissa Hryb from Manitoba.
The other seven competitors each won $300.

The top three finishers all told Restaurant News they would like to travel, to experience different cultures and food.

First place finisher Winters, who has one year of an apprenticeship left at the Fairmont Empress Hotel in Victoria, took her classroom training at Malaspina College on Vancouver Island.

She started cooking with her mother and took courses in high school, she said. "My chef said she saw something in me and bought me a knife and sent me off to school."

Her long-term goals include either owning her own restaurant or "be the chef in someplace spectacular." She also wants to mentor and inspire others.
Her coach is Ken Kanano, executive sous-chef at the Fairmont Empress.

Silver winner Stenabaugh, who started her foodservice career as a dishwasher in Huntsville, says her future is "wide open." She wants to own a business or be an executive chef at a hotel.

Bronze medalist Hyrb says she would like to end up as an executive chef somewhere. She got her first taste of the restaurant business working as a waitress at the age of 14.